Aerodynamics of Cycling Shoe Cover

Bottom Line: Disadvantage

I reviewed a study from a sport engineering journal published in March of 2010 titled Cycling Shoe Aerodynamics (Giuseppe Gibertini, Donato Grassi, Carlo Macchi, Giuseppe De Bortoli).  In the study they compared the aerodynamics of a two different sidi shoes - one sleek profile Sidi shoe with laces instead of straps and buckles, and a similar Sidi shoe with the straps and buckles.  In the study the sleek profile shoe performed significantly better than the shoe with straps and buckles.  They then compared the shoes with straps and buckles by itself and the same shoe with a tight fitting shoe cover.  The shoe + cover performed even worse than the shoe by itself.  This study demonstrated a performance disadvantage with shoe covers.